By Bill Leonard When the church’s Christmas witness wanes, let’s blame Starbucks. When our Advent hope falters, let’s fault the “war on Christmas.” When the “Gospel of Wealth” (Andrew Carnegie, 1889) fails to undergird our Bethlehem-borne faith, let’s whine about…
Christmas music continues
Yesterday morning in worship we sang three Christmas carols because, officially, the season does not end until January 6th. It is always fun (but strange) singing carols into January even though much of the decorations are gone and everyone else…
Christmas – remembering the stable
I really can’t say Christmas better than this. “On one night of all nights Christ did it, coming down the stairs of heaven with a child in his arms.” –Paul Scherer, Love is a Spendthrift “Almighty God, who now in…
There’s something about Mary
Women have had a long, rich, and complex relationship with Mary the mother of Jesus since the beginning of Christianity. As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, this collection of reflections invites us to pause and ponder the young woman at…
How God changes our neighborhood
Have you ever driven through an old neighborhood and thought, “Why haven’t they just bulldozed this whole place? This is a mess! This is an eyesore! The people still living here should get a medal.” How do we respond to a…
Kirk Cameron, Chuck Norris, and war on Christmas
It seems every year there is an outcry from Christians who bemoan culture’s lack of acceptance of Christmas displays and call it the War on Christmas. Kirk Cameron is the latest to defend Christians from a supposed secular atheist attack…
What they don’t tell you about Advent
As slow as Christmas
It was late on Christmas Day; the sun had set and my parents and I were somewhere between Yatesville and Barnesville on our way back home after the day-long celebration of Christ’s birth through the eating of food and the…
Of lament, brutality, torture and Advent
I am almost overwhelmed with sorrow today. I do not wish to discuss how different groups on either side of the spectrum may, or may not, have made use of, or sought to make use of the events in Cleveland,…